In the first quarter of the year, I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I was, and to some degree still am, quite heavy. I love to cook, and hey, guess what? Eating what I cook goes hand in hand with cooking. I have a job that is entirely desk-based, so the only way I could burn less calories at work is if somebody paid me to sleep.

I started off watching a ton of videos on YouTube, reading fitness posts, etc. etc., but I’ve been around long enough to know that it’s really just diet and exercise to loose weight.

No, really, that’s it. Spend more calories on exercise, eat less calories, try to avoid fried foods, processed foods, etc. Not some crazy ‘eat nothing but avocados and sunflower seeds for three weeks straight’ diet or anything like that.

At my heaviest, I was around 365. I say ‘around’ because the scale at work stops at 350, and I wasn’t going to go find a CARGO SCALE to put my Sasquatch-sized carcass on for better accuracy. In the six weeks leading up to being diagnosed with diabetes, I had lost thirty five pounds with very little effort. That’s what worried me, that and having to go to the bathroom about every forty-five minutes, all day, all night.

I’ll toss a gallery of some of my UnderArmor walk ‘finish’ screens at the end of the post along with some photos from my hikes.

I think most people would be quite surprised at how fast their physical condition can improve simply hiking a few hours per week, let alone per day.

I’ve been lifting weights, I have a Weider home gym that I’ve nearly maxed out in all of the major exercises.

I’ve got my weight down to 314, almost all of the progress was made in the first month though, which would be disheartening, if I hadn’t also lost two pant sizes since then. Yes, I know, muscle weighs more than fat. I’ve known that since high school biology, yet every other person I see gives me that nugget o’ information like it’s the Holy Grail of ‘Keep going!’ My blood pressure is finally in the green, my resting heart rate went from 90 to 60, and I feel very odd on days when I have to sit still. So it is working, I just have to keep going, keep reminding myself that I didn’t get here in 90 days, I’m not going to get back to where I was before in 90 days. I just hope it doesn’t take quite as long to get fit as it did to get to where I was at the beginning of the year.

My current goal is to get down to 300 pounds, at which point I want to start doing higher intensity training, because the goal after that is 275, then 250. I’d be quite happy with 250 at this point.

So if you’re pining away for a better you, find something, anything, to get off of the couch, out of the chair, and go do something. Even if it’s just walking in your neighborhood. The UnderArmor applications have challenges built in, like ‘Complete 30 GPS verified hikes in 30 days’ for a chance to win prizes, and to be honest, I don’t care about the prizes, it just helps motivate me. The prizes are a random drawing based on completion, so don’t think you can’t win based on where you are in the ratings.’

If that sounds boring, add in audio books, or your favorite internet radio station over your smartphone, but it’s a sure bet that if you just sit still, you won’t improve your physical condition.

My big contest at this point is completing the ‘You vs. 2018’ challenge – 1018 kilometers in 2018. I’ve completed 587.9 k at this point, and I have 123 days left to do the rest.

Easy.

Tomorrow is the start of Dove season here in Georgia – y’all be safe, and enjoy.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Tim Bowers got to decide for himself whether he wanted to live or die.

When the avid outdoorsman was badly hurt Saturday in a hunting accident, doctors said he would be paralyzed and could be on a ventilator for life. His family had a unique request: Could he be brought out of sedation to hear his prognosis and decide what he wanted to do?

Doctors said yes, and Bowers chose to take no extra measures to stay alive. He died Sunday, hours after his breathing tube was removed.

“We just asked him, ‘Do you want this?’ And he shook his head emphatically no,” his sister, Jenny Shultz, said of her brother, who was often found hunting, camping or helping his father on his northeastern Indiana farm.

The 32-year-old was deer hunting when he fell 16 feet from a tree and suffered a severe spinal injury that paralyzed him from the shoulders down. Doctors thought he might never breathe on his own again.

Courts have long upheld the rights of patients to refuse life support. But Bowers’ case was unusual because it’s often family members or surrogates, not the patient, who make end-of-life decisions.

(Folks – BE SAFE! Harnesses are NOT expensive compared to the kind of damage you can do to yourself if you fall. I’ve fallen 16 feet HUNDREDS of times (I used to do live theater stunts in college. Hey, ‘young and dumb,’ as they say, ask me how many straight fingers I have left sometime) but that was when I was 20 years old – I’m more than double that now, and instead of a snappy rolling fall and jump up at the end, these days I expect there would be a loud thump followed by a groan, if I was even conscious. Most tree stands now COME WITH a basic safety harness, however if you bought your treestand second hand, or if you’re using a home made stand or elevated box blind, that doesn’t mean skip the safety harness. In an elevated box stand, a safety line off of the ladder works the same as a safety line from a ladder stand. USE IT. )

Our final shoot of the 2013 season will be held Saturday, August 17th, and will be a Cystic Fibrosis benefit shoot. THERE WILL BE NO PAYBACK! $20 for all classes, all proceeds go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

I’ve always been fascinated by herbs, the different smells, flavors, medicinal and other uses never fails to astound me. Think about it for a minute – how HUNGRY did the first person to EAT a stinging nettle have to be? How did early humans discover the various uses for these herbs? (I always imagine the downtrodden, much picked on Thag being poked with a stick and told ‘you eat that or we beat you, then, if you die, we no eat it. Now eat!’)

There isn’t any deep or special relationship between my life and stinging nettles, my most memorable encounter with the plant was around 1980 at Camp Asbury in northern Ohio, and that encounter was me running as fast as my adolescent legs could carry me during a game of hide-and-seek, which in this case ran me right through about a fifty yard wide patch of nettles while wearing 80’s gym shorts, a tee shirt, socks and tennis shoes. If you’ve ever had a bad encounter with the plant, at this point, you’re either wincing or your eyes are crossing thinking about the result.

The only reason I decided to use stinging nettles for the first herb to discuss on this blog is simple: I flipped through ‘The Random House Book of Herbs,’ by Roger Phillips & Nicky Foy looking for rosemary and thyme, two herbs I’ve grown in my back yard for years, and saw the entry for stinging nettles. One wince of memory later and I decided to explore what can be done with this obnoxious plant. That being said, here we go…

Urtica Dioica

“Nettle, or stinging nettle, is a perennial plant growing in temperate and tropical wasteland areas around the world. The plant has been naturalized in Brazil and other parts of South America. It grows 2 to 4 meters high and produces pointed leaves and white to yellowish flowers. Nettle has a well-known reputation for giving a savage sting when the skin touches the hairs and bristles on the leaves and stems. The genus name Urtica comes from the Latin verb urere, meaning ‘to burn,’ because of these stinging hairs. The species name dioica means ‘two houses’ because the plant usually contains either male or female flowers. (Taylor, 2012)

According to multiple sources, stinging nettle has been used for centuries to treat various types of pain, urinary issues including infections and an enlarged prostate, sinus pain, and insect bites. “Scientists think nettle does this by reducing levels of inflammatory chemicals in the body, and by interfering with the way the body transmits pain signals.” (University of Maryland Medical Center, 2011) Based on that, you would think that nettles are a miracle, wouldn’t you? According to WebMD: “People use the root and above ground parts as medicine. Stinging nettle is used for many conditions, but so far, there isn’t enough scientific evidence to determine whether or not it is effective for any of them.” (WebMD, 2013) Call me a skeptic, but anytime a corporation finds something that grows for free that people can use and bypass paying for a product, they tend to eradicate it or demonize it. If stinging nettles didn’t provide some use, I don’t think the remedies would have stuck around for hundreds of years, being passed down from generation to generation. NOW, I can probably spend an hour thinking of sixty different examples of ‘well, they kept doing this stupid sh#t, didn’t they?’ but we’re talking about PAIN RELIEF here, and I know in my experience, people have a pretty damn good idea when pain relief is working or not.

Moving on to the what, why and how of the piece, let’s start with medicinal uses, and then move on to culinary uses. ***PLEASE NOTE*** Consult your doctor before using herbs for medicinal uses, this is for informational, survival and survival prep purposes, if NOT in those situations, ALWAYS consult a doctor before trying any of these remedies. ****

Stinging Nettle Medicinal Uses

Congestion

Coughs

Tuberculosis

Bronchitis

Laryngitis

Consumption

Anemia

Arthritis

Rheumatism

Gout

Bursitis

Tendonitis

Loss of muscle power

Paralysis*

Hay Fever

Seasonal allergies

Asthma

Hives

Sciatica

Neuralgia

Kidney stones

Enlarged Prostate

Multiple Sclerosis

High Blood Pressure

Fever

(Various sources list MANY uses, far beyond this list; however, if a treatment is mentioned by multiple sources, it is in bold type. Sources include: (Taylor, 2012) (University of Maryland Medical Center, 2011) (Vance) (WebMD, 2013))

Preparation of Stinging Nettle for use

Traditional Preparation: Both the root and the leaves are traditionally prepared as infusions. Dosages depend on what one is taking it for. In herbal medicine systems, as a healthy prevention to prostate difficulties or to maintain prostate health, one-half cup of a root infusion 2-3 times weekly is recommended (2-3 ml of a root tincture or 2-3 g of powdered root in capsules or tablets can be substituted if desired). The natural remedy for BPH is one-half cup of a root infusion 2-3 times daily for 30-90 days. (2-3 ml of a root tincture or 2-3 g in capsules or tablets 2-3 times daily can be substituted if desired.) For allergies, inflammation, and hypertension: one cup of a leaf infusion is taken twice daily in traditional medicine systems. This also can be substituted by taking 3-4 g of leaf tablets/capsules twice daily. (Taylor, 2012)

Preparation of Stinging Nettle Tea

Find the Right Plant:Ideally, you want a plant that is small enough you can comfortably reach the parts you will need for the tea. I find that younger nettles tend to produce a better quality tea.

Cut off The Leaves:The leaves are where the principal goodness of this plant is stored. Cut off as many leaves as you feel would make a decent cup of tea.

Boil Your Water and Serve: Boil your water, add the leaves. You may wish to do this in a separate container, as it’s always difficult to gauge the correct amount of water and leaves you will need for a single cup.

Allow it to Infuse. This is incredibly important! Unless you allow the tea to infuse for at least 10 minutes, the sting will still be there – ouch! (Low, 2011)

After searching around for quite a bit, tea seems to be the most common use other than drying and powdering the leaves to use in capsules (or simply take like a headache powder.) Dosage is all over the place. I did find a recipe for a hair tonic that was basically the tops of stinging nettles combined with white vinegar, however I doubt a shining head of hair is high on ‘must prepare for disaster’ lists other than with the film and stage group of people. Searching any of the links at the end of this article will give information on how to prepare stinging nettles, though be prepared to dig, even the recipes I found for curing ailments seem to skip the steps between finding this plant and using “X” milligrams.

Culinary uses of Stinging Nettle

Other than the tea recipe above, which could be placed in the culinary section, references list using stinging nettles everywhere you would use baby spinach. “…they are rich in vitamin C, calcium, potassium, flavonoids, histamine, and serotonin—all the great chemicals one needs to reenergize after a cold winter and to combat spring allergies.” (Diehl, 2013) The author continues to detail how to harvest nettles without getting stung, including washing and blanching the leaves at a slight simmer for ten minutes, and includes a link to nettle soup.

On one of my favorite culinary websites, Hunter – Angler – Gardener- Cook, Hank Shaw has a growing list of recipes, including one for using stinging nettles to make pasta, and another to make nettle pesto. Just because you are in a survival situation doesn’t mean half-cooked rabbit on a stick. (Every time I see ‘something dead 3’ above a campfire in a movie, I wince, those shots are made and directed by folks who have NEVER tried to do that. On the flip side, the hobbits in Lord of the Rings put their CAST IRON pan right on a small bed of coals to cook bacon. They were doing it right.)

“We made quick work of the two grocery bags’ worth of nettles. Like all greenery, it shrinks massively in the blanching process. After its bath in the ice water, I set the now stingless nettles in a colander to drain. I pressed it to release more water (which I could have drunk as nettle tea), and then put it into a kitchen towel.

Here’s an important part to prepping any green potherb, not just nettles. Take the towel and roll the greens in it like a candy wrapper: One end twists one way, the other end twists the opposite way. Squeeeeze! More blue-green liquid runs out. Now you’re done. You now have prepped stinging nettles, ready to be frozen in a vacuum-seal bag or Ziploc, or cooked in any number of ways.

This is your standard prep when dealing with nettles. Is it worth it? You bet. Unlike acorns, there is no shortage of information about the benefits of Urtica dioica, the common stinging nettle. Even within the smallish world of the food bloggers I can think of more than a dozen experiments and posts, my favorites of which I will list below.” (Shaw, 2010)

As you can see, Hank Shaw thinks a lot of stinging nettles, and honestly, though I’ve never eaten one at this point, if he thinks they are worth the time and trouble, so do I. Spend some time at his website, and you’ll come to trust his judgment too, it turns ‘we shot a deer, how do we cook it?’ into a wide range of great tasting options, rather than ‘kill it and grill it or smoke it.’

I hope you enjoyed this short foray into one of the many useful herbs. I’ll keep digging around for other found-in-the-wild gifts to somebody surviving and write more soon.

Like this:

Earlier in the year, I wrote about My Fitness Pal and Juicing along with a quick product review of the Sketchers GoRun shoes I picked up. On the treadmill, half an hour ago, I had an interesting series of thoughts on weight loss and psychology: the first was a well known concept, that it takes something like thirty days to make something a habit, the second was that the easiest way for me to think of my eating and weight loss was to consider it a job.

The thought works like this: Whatever you eat in a given day is work building up on your ‘desk,’ exercising in a manner that allows you to accurately count the calories expended is cleaning off your desk, with positive results being the paycheck.

There are a couple of things I had to get over – the first is weighing myself every day. Most people don’t get paid every day (for a regular job) they get paid once per week or every other week, or in some cases, once per month. Weighing myself every day was frustrating in the extreme, because unless violently ill, seeing several POUNDS drop off overnight should be alarming, and the second is that I make certain I use the same scale every time, and that I’ve taken my wallet, watch, keys and phone out of my pockets so that I am just weighing myself and my clothing. I weigh myself in the mornings at work, when I haven’t eaten anything yet, and if I’ve had anything to drink, it has been minor. I’m now to the point where I really consider once every five days a good ‘measure’ to weigh myself, which is where the thought about it being a paycheck comes into play.

And it works, quite well. Since January 14th, I’ve lost 35 pounds.

If you spend several hours per day on the couch, GET UP, even walking around the neighborhood is better than just letting work pile up on your desk…

At the beginning of this year, I weighed 340 pounds, partly as a result of getting injured in 2007, partly because I hadn’t done anything about it yet.

So I decided it was time to get off the couch, out of the chair, and do something about it. I blogged about MyFitnessPal and Juicing earlier in the year, and since then I’ve lost 25 pounds.

I don’t juice much – basically, when I’d get done juicing stuff, I’d look in the ‘waste’ bin and think, ‘hmm, I like that stuff too,’ plus there was a lot of fiber being tossed by the wayside, so I’ve simply been exercising and eating just a bit smarter.

One of the tools I’ve found that worked very well for me was getting a better pair of shoes to use on the treadmill. I had a physical therapist tell me once that the active life of a pair of exercise shoes is, at the maximum, six months. The shoes I had been using on the treadmill were about three years old. After 2-3 miles, my feet and shins hurt terribly.

I found a ‘buy one pair, get the second pair half price’ special on tennis shoes, and picked up a pair of New Balance for my every-day wear tennis shoes, and a pair of Sketcher’s GoRun shoes for the treadmill, sort of as an experiment. I’d seen several articles over the years about ‘natural running,’ and recently about shoes that were closer to natural running, and these fit the bill nicely.

They’re fantastic. I’ve done 3-6 miles, 4-6 days per week, since I picked these shoes up. I will probably wear them out in another month or two, and won’t complain a bit, since at that point the shoes would have been worn for nearly 180 miles of walking.

So, I highly recommend these shoes: take a look at them if you’re in the market for running or walking shoes.

Like this:

Just after Christmas, I posted that I was going to start juicing. I have been, somewhat, however when I see the amount of material I was adding to the compost heap, I kept thinking “but those bits are yummy too…” and really, I’ve just been eating more vegetables and fruit, and juicing now and then. My wife, not a fresh-fruit or vegetable enthusiast, has discovered that she LOVES fresh apple and orange juice.

Simply put, when you set the app up, you tell it what you weigh, and how much you want to lose per week, and it generates a caloric goal per day. After that you enter the food you eat in the daily ‘diary,’ which is connected to a decent database of foods including nutritional information for some of the foods (it depends on what’s entered already) or you can enter the nutritional information yourself, from the back of the package. There is also a bar code scanner, for pre-packaged foods. As an example of the scanner, I usually take microwavable dinners to work on our midnight shifts, Lean Cuisine or other ‘healthy’ offerings depending on whats on sale that week. Scanning the bar code on those meals has, so far, accurately brought up all the nutritional information: I cross checked several of the results from the back of the package.

You also enter exercise into the app, which offsets your calorie count for the day. I have a treadmill with a 32″ flat screen TV/DVD combo in front of it, so I tend to watch NetFlix or DVDs while on the treadmill. Yesterday I watched “Thor” again while on the treadmill, with a result of 4.6 miles over the one hour forty-eight minutes of the movie, incline 4-6, for 1,326 calories burned.

The app makes an interesting game out of what you eat and how you exercise. Now, every time I open my mouth to put something in it, I think about that calorie count, along with if I’ll be able to hit the treadmill that day to offset the difference.

It’s working, too. I lost 8 pounds in the first ten days. It’s also changing how I think about foods, since the app tracks the nutritional content (if it’s provided when you enter your intake) of everything. For example, people might skip a Coke Zero because it has no calories. Wrong. It has NUTRIENTS in it, so you should track it. Again, the bar code scanner works on every soft drink I’ve tried it on, and you’d be shocked how much SODIUM you end up taking in with diet drinks. Sodium in moderation is necessary, but at the end of a week, if you look at your sodium intake on this app (if you’ve been honest about adding foods) it’s HUGE, way above what is needed.

Yesterday, I had me a bit of a weak moment and stopped at a local BBQ place for lunch. I had the beef plate with deep fried green beans and jalapeno poppers. Not good, I felt like I swallowed half a bottle of deef frier fat all day. One month ago, I WOULDN’T HAVE NOTICED. Instead, after I got home, I hit the treadmill to make up the calorie difference.

I won’t be doing that again anytime soon.

You learn, with this app, what’s filling without being high-calorie. You also start noticing exactly how many THOUSAND calories you can give up with fast food.

I want to see 250# again – and I want to see it soon, but in a way that I can SUSTAIN. No yo-yo dieting for me, I like to do things in such a way that I don’t have to do them over and over again, so changing what I eat, how I track it, and how I pay for it with exercise is exactly the right way to do it.

Losing this weight will help with, well, everything. Better hunting, less cost (tree stands rated for Sasquatchoids are more expensive) in my equipment choices, CLOTHES WILL FIT AGAIN without having to ask folks “that come in man size?” (I messed with Scentlok at the ATA Show when the nice lady tried to sell me on their new jacket. “That come in man size?” I asked… she said “What size are you?” “XXXL…” “No, sorry, XXL is the largest…”) Of course, losing weight isn’t going to make my SHOULDERS smaller, and I don’t quite fit through normal doors because of the width of my shoulders, but hey, less weight is still better.

Like this:

I caught just a bit of a recipe on the television, oh, maybe five months ago, where the chef involved (I can’t even remember if it was Alton Brown or what) was ROASTING Brussels sprouts.

I love Brussels sprouts. My mouth is watering writing about them.

So, the other day, I decided “time to try this out.” I Googled a few recipes and, hey look, the common denominator was ‘roast them,’ go figure.

Image from Onceuponachef.com – click to see that site’s ‘roasted Brussels sprouts’ recipe.

The basics are very, very simple. Get fresh Brussels sprouts, trim the stem off along with any narsty looking leaves, cut them in half, toss with olive oil, salt, pepper and anything else you want to toss them with (I added a bit of fresh minced garlic) and roast at 400′ for 35-45 minutes.

The sprouts are one of the low-glycemic nutritious vegetables that should be considered in weight reduction programs. 100 g brussel sprouts provide just 45 calories, nonetheless, contain 3.38 g of protein, 3.80 g of dietary fiber (10% of RDA) and zero cholesterol.

In fact, brussels sprouts are a storehouse of several flavonoid anti-oxidants like thiocyanates, indoles, lutein, zea-xanthin, sulforaphane and isothiocyanates. Together, these phytochemicals offer protection from prostate, colon, prostate, and endometrial cancers.

Di-indolyl-methane (DIM), a metabolite of indole-3-carbinol is found to be an effective immune modulator, anti-bacterial and anti-viral agent through its action of potentiating “Interferon-γ” receptors.

Brussel sprouts are an excellent source of vitamin C; 100 g sprouts provide about 85 mg or 142% of RDA. Together with other antioxidant vitamins such as vitamin A and E, it helps protect the body by trapping harmful free radicals.

Zea-xanthin, an important dietary carotenoid in sprouts, is selectively absorbed into the retinal macula-lutea in the eyes where it is thought to provide anti-oxidant and protective light-filtering functions from UV rays. Thus, it helps prevent retinal damage, “age-related macular degeneration related macular degeneration disease” (ARMD), in the elderly.

Sprouts are the good source of another anti-oxidant vitamin A, provides about 754 IU per 100g. Vitamin A is required for maintaining healthy mucus membranes and skin and is essential for acuity of vision. Foods rich in this vitamin have been found to offer protection against lung and oral cavity cancers.

It is one of the excellent vegetable sources for vitamin-K; 100 g provides about 177 µg or about 147% of RDA. Vitamin K has potential role bone health by promoting osteotrophic (bone formation and strengthening) activity. Adequate vitamin-K levels in the diet help limiting neuronal damage in the brain and thereby, preventing or at least, delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Further, the sprouts are notably good in many B-complex groups of vitamins such as niacin, vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine), thiamin, pantothenic acid, etc., that are essential for substrate metabolism inside the human body.

They are also rich source of minerals like copper, calcium, potassium, iron, manganese, and phosphorus. 100 g fresh sprouts provide 25 mg (1.5% of RDA) sodium and 389 mg (8% of RDA) potassium. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids that helps controlling heart rate and blood pressure by countering effects of sodium. Manganese is used by the body as a co-factor for the antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase. Iron is required for cellular oxidation and red blood cell formation.

Brussels sprouts are incredibly nutritious vegetable that offers protection from vitamin A deficiency, bone loss, iron-deficiency anemia, and believed to protect from cardiovascular diseases and colon and prostate cancers.

Be sure to check out Happy Healthy Family for more great venison and wild game dishes, sides, and desserts! Click here to order

Venison Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients:

12 cabbage leaves

Olive oil, for sautéing and drizzling

Filling:

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1 1/2 pound ground venison

1 Tablespoon tomato paste

1 cup cooked rice

2 eggs

2 Tablespoons Kosher salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon basil

1/4 teaspoon oregano

1/2 cup milk

Sauce:

1 1/2 quarts crushed tomatoes

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

3 Tablespoons flour mixed with 1/4 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. For the sauce, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a saucepan. Sauté garlic for about 1 minute. Add tomatoes, sugar, lemon juice and flour mixture to the pan and mix well. Heat until the mixture thickens and turn off the heat.

Like this:

I’ve been interested in juicing for quite some time. For one thing, I like fruit and vegetable juices, for another, I keep hearing about the ‘massive benefits’ of juicing. One… enthusiast (being polite here, gimme a break) was ranting on the television the other day about how cooking destroys the good enzymes and juicing is the only way to get them. I thought about that as I was nibbling on a raw carrot. You know, juicing it. With my teeth.

The wife gave me a juicer for Christmas, and I’ve already been ribbed a few times about how I got her a Kimber Custom II and she got me a juicer, but I’ve been wanting one for quiet some time, so I’m happy. (Besides, I get to shoot and clean the Kimber, so it’s all good.)

I’ve started looking at recipes for the juicer, and quite a few of the ones I’ve read are fine and dandy EXCEPT for one ingredient. Like ‘Apples, Mangoes, Oranges, Lemons, and spinach!’ Ok. I like all of those. Except the thought of SPINACH juice combined with LEMONS AND MANGOES makes me want to nail my tongue to the back of garbage truck, because I think that would taste better.

As a quick test run this afternoon, I juiced one orange and one apple, and made several important discoveries.

No matter how splattered and opaque the top becomes, pulling the feeder tool out and looking down the feed chute to see if you need to add more fruit is both funny and rough on the glasses. *SPLAT*

It takes a whole orange, and a whole apple, to make enough juice for four or five gulps. Which isn’t much in my book.

Orange seeds sound like the Mayan Apocalypse until they make their way to the waste chute.

Even my wife (not a vegetable or fruit fan) likes the apple/orange juice combo, though she says ‘it needs Vodka.’

Oranges are a pain in the ass, unless I’m missing something and I’m supposed to juice the peel too.

Black & Decker didn’t feel they should spend the $.30 to add even a single recipe or piece of advice in the juicer, just basic instructions.

I picked up apples, kale, celery, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes at the store today, juicing might just be more expensive than liposuction.

Wish me luck, or at least massively humorous failure, since I’ll be sure to share either one here.